


Tace

by orphan_account



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-13
Updated: 2005-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tace</p><p>Written for Slodwick's A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Third Time's the Charm challenge on LJ. The included picture was the prompt. The fic had to be exactly one thousand words and be based on both the picture and the number three. The title is a lame pun. It means be silent and refers to the old saying tace is latin for candle. There are 3 sections of 333 words divided up into 3 (third person limited) points of view of 111 words. Because I'm a geek. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. The ending sentence is a reference to The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. And other stuff. Yeah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tace

It's a dark and sodding stormy night.

Of course it bloody is. Life is only the story you tell yourself - the shadow play seen from behind the screen and never so pretty as the watching of it. Watching it, playing it, whatsit, you want it? Spike is chattering manically, nervous and mechanical. Motormouths constantly, semi unconsciously, as he runs to the hookup and looks for the gang. He's first, or only, or too late or time to spare.

Breathe.

He leans into the wall. One last fag for the road. The dimp flares in chemical excitement. He breathes in. He breathes out. He watches the sparks scatter into the gloom.

* * *

The thunder storm takes flash-photographs of the battle below. The streetlights are popping out one after the other along the sidewalk. He is high up on a flat roof and the rain is pooling already. He stares down. Strobing polaroids of fantasy hordes burn after-images into his eyes.

His heart is beating faster.

He sees the huddle and the host surrounding them, mobbing like grasping paparazzi.

He nears the edge.

A freeze frame, a sudden grimy illumination, of three Old Masters hanging over a fireplace. He takes quick breaths of wet air. There's a screaming, flying thing bearing down on him. He shuts his eyes tight against it, and steps off.

* * *

This is the end.

He's still running, running on evil. His forehead is slicked with grease and sweat and rain and the blood in his mouth tastes older than the world. He pounds the sidewalk. Connor, Connor. His bones rattle.

Drops of gel bead his eyelashes and he blinks through a picture book of scraps - stray memories of Darla brushing her hair and Buffy's shining in the sunlight - Doyle laughing and Fred singing and Cordy with her hands on her hips. Way up in an apartment block some coffee is stewing.

He staggers, two steps.

He's running, running on empty, and he shuts down to everything but the Plan.

* * *

He remembers dying- the knife numbness that spread through his body and woke up his mind. He remembers the look on Mr... Angelus... Dad's face and the way his whole life passed before his eyes. Literally - a story in his head like a movie playing. No. Not like a movie, like too many people talking and they drown each other out. Like a story that never ends and never goes anywhere and the pictures all double-exposed. It grappled with his mind, writing and overwriting, patterning - the bricks building themselves and graffiti scribbling over them. He's dropping to the ground and the wind is screaming - and he remembers dying.

He remembers dying in the alley. It's always an alley. With him it's always an alley; the passage of goddamm time.

Gunn's blood washes off his hands like wine pouring away.

He was drunk. He was so goddamm drunk and young and stupid and the hangover's lasted three hundred years.

Illyria drops from the fence and the chainlink jingle jangles against the steady throbbing all around.

God damned and devil marked but fuck if he isn't waking up now. He stands straight. Time for the wake, for the lych walk and the wake. Time enough for that when the work is done.

The neon lights are burning out. The dragon swoops.

* * *

He remembers dying. With a snap with a hiss with a crackle with a flame he burned a bright torch in hell.

His shining moment - his big fat fucking death scene with an exclusive audience of thousands. His name in lights; his badge of honour; his bow-out and his golden handshake. His starring role, his day in the sun and *Christ* he could go on all day. But there are no more days, here in the alley at the end of all things. This isn't his part. He's all played out.

Bugger.

Some things are too big to come back from. And yet...

He wants to see how it ends.

* * *

He shivers in the shadow in the alley in the rain. He shudders once and then he feels the heat of hell and the stench of mandrake fills the air. He smells Gunn dying. He doesn't turn round. The last lights go out.

It's raining heavier now and the fat drops begin to sizzle on the sidewalk and he shrinks inside himself, his last defence, his insurmountable, doorless keep of conviction. He swings his sword.

He's climbing, grasping at the dragon's wing. The white noise roar deafens his ears to anything, everything other than punch, kick, dodge and swipe, rinse and repeat, it never ends.

It never ends.

The blow falls.

* * *

He shivers in the shadow, in the alley, in the rain. The waiting is the worst, the pause before.

And it's on. No sword, just him and the other. The rhythm of the fight washes over him, spills out of him - Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack be dervish in the thick. He rushes the front line and happens to somebody, one after the other. He is lost in the crowd, in the dance. Whipping up a whirlwind of arms and legs and broken heads.

There's a clear space around him. His half-severed arm is a bloody flail. He smiles in a flash of white teeth.

The dust settles.

* * *

He shivers in the shadow, in the alley, in the rain but his body takes over with patterns of attackfeintlunge like it's stretching out and warming up. It's so easy and he's so goddamm strong!

He regroups - lets the Connors whirl around his head like some kinda weirdass snowglobe. They settle on his shoulders and strengthen his back: he's smart, hunter, son, Vandal. He is Mad Max and Neo and the Silver Surfer and the Destroyer. He's Bruce Lee. He's a high cloud scudding fast in the top of the world.

He's lost in the hunting, stepped out of time... and then everything slows. Stops.

And the sun also rises.


End file.
